The Death Song of Merlin Emrys
by Lialee Ederian
Summary: Merlin dies and Albion mourns.
1. The Death of Albion

Merlin dies.

Merlin dies and Emrys dies.

Emrys dies and magic mourns.

Camelot moves on like it always does, most of its people as they were before Merlin died.

The grocer notices - Merlin used to buy ingredients from him daily, courtesy of Gaius's orders, of course.

The grocer is sad, but he has a business to run. He smiles widely as another customer graces his booth - another regular. (His business is run on regulars.)

The cook at the royal palace notices. No one is thieving little tidbits of food anymore. And no one is helping her clean up the kitchen at nights, either. Not voluntarily. She lets a few tears slip when no one sees. Merlin really had been one of her favourites.

But then the scullery maids and other servants enter, and the cook wipes away the wetness from her cheeks and sets about to getting the kitchen ready for the day. The entire castle needs food, after all.

The other castle servants notice, too. Merlin is their family. And losing family is one of the most painful things in the world. They maintain a silent mourning the entire day, and even the nobles sense the cloud of gloom that hangs over the halls of the castle. It seems that the sun extinguished alongside Merlin, and it its absence, the dark clouds reign.

The knights notice.

Leon remembers.

He remembers his first thought - Merlin wouldn't last long as Arthur's servant.

Well, that has certainly proven wrong, hasn't it? (He lasted long. Too long, and yet not long enough.)

Leon remembers the way Merlin was always there for the knights who sought him like Arthur did. He remembers the way Merlin's food on the hunting trips was so much nicer than anything the other squires used to cook up. (Servants don't need to come, but Merlin always did.)

Leon remembers Merlin's easiness with the knights that few servants ever show. Leon remembers Merlin as one of their own, and he mourns.

Elyan runs when he hears. He runs away, far into the forest, a small bag at his side. He runs from his problems, thinking that maybe, just maybe, it isn't real because he isn't there for the fallout.

But it is, and Elyan goes back with the hopeless realization that he can do nothing for the man who has done so much for his sister and him.

Percival takes the news well, everyone thinks. He is quiet and nauseatingly silent as his eyes glaze over. He abruptly changes course and walks away.

Later, they find him at the edge of a beautiful lake that only the knights of the round table, Gaius and Gwen can get to.

Percival is staring into the sparkling waters and Gwen falls down beside him, realizing at whose gravesite he has come to.

The others watch from behind, hands clasped in front and eyes looking unseeingly into the depths of the water.

(Gwen thinks that she hears sobs, silent and forboding, coming from the lake itself. She breaks, for it seems as if the world is breaking.)

Gwaine goes. Not to the tavern to drink away his troubles, or to find female company or to do anything that everyone has come to expect of him. He just quietly disappears, and no one knows what happens to him, not until he comes back battered and bleeding with his sword coloured red and his eyes the glare of the Great Dragon.

Arthur notices too, of course.

Merlin is his best friend. _Was_ his best friend.

Sometimes, Arthur thinks he can hear Merlin's snarky comments as he changes his clothes. But he doesn't have another hole in his belt and Merlin isn't there to tease him about it.

(Arthur would have endured all the jokes in the world if it means Merlin comes back. But there are no more jokes and there is no more Merlin.)

Arthur notices the way the world seems bleaker, his kingdom much harsher, and his life so much more difficult. He notices the way the knights droop, Gwen shatters slowly from the inside out, and he wants to blame Merlin. But Merlin isn't here and all he can do is blame himself.

Gwen throws herself into work. She doesn't need to be a servant anymore - not with her brother a knight. But she does anyway. First because she hadn't wanted to have Merlin work alone. And now because she wants to remember the way Merlin would smile at her every moment he saw her in the halls. The way he would tease her about Arthur, calm her if something irritating happened and let her cry on his shoulder if something sad did. (Who is going to let her weep on their shoulder now?)

She wants to remember, because his face is fading from her mind, and she hates that it can.

Gaius is the court physician. He cannot affodd to cry, to take time off, to run away. Gaius mourns the only way he can - he goes every night to Merlin's makeshift grave and places a blessing of the old religion on it. Merlin deserves so much more, Gaius knows, but Gaius is old now, and he can do no more.

As he thinks that, tears rain down his face and into the cauldron.

The potion is useless.

Gaius mourns.

Hunith is alone in her cottage when the Camelot knights come.

For a moment, she is happy and glowing and wondering if her son is with them.

But he is not. She saddens, but only slightly. Surely Merlin is just off potentially saving Camelot again.

Then Arthur unmounts and walks straight towards Hunith with one of the most sorrowful faces Hunith has seen in the short time she has been alive. A face that reminds her- reminds her-

Hunith, eyes wide and heart breaking more than it had when Balinor had been taken by Uther's men, collapses. (Because when Balinor died, she had Merlin. Now who will she have?)

Arthur catches her, but there is nothing he can do.

Hunith sobs and weeps and the entire village watches. The entire village mourns.

The pain of a mother is no ordinary thing - magic roars.

Magic roars and the druids hear.

They glimpse the wisps of connection fly into the horizon, they feel the sentience of magic die, weaken, lose hope.

The seers scream into the air, their cries reverberating throughout thousands of forests, for the harbringer of Albion is dead and magic no more a force of hope.

The druids weep with the pain of a loss of family, for magic is their family, and Emrys was magic. They weep and draw in upon themselves, building little shrines to the man who had once been destined to bring them all to an era of freedom. An era of magic.

That era is no more.

Mordred notices. Mordred feels the loss of Emrys in his bones. He is not ready to. For years since their last meeting, Mordred has regretted what he spoke to him. The words spat in anger and want for revenge haunt him to this day. Mordred regrets it, and for years he has wanted to put it to rights. But Mordred had thought Emrys would be there for a long time. Albion had not yet come.

But Emrys is gone and destiny is lost and Mordred mourns the chance he has cannot have again.

Witches and Warlocks all over Albion - or what it should been, would once have been, never will be, now - notice. They feel the magic leach from the air and their own reserves weaken. They feel the loss even when they know not what the loss is. They taste the bleakness of the end coming near, the end of Albion, the end of magic.

They feel the loss of Emrys in the oasis of their magic and they mourn. They mourn for magic and they mourn for Emrys.

Morgana noticies. Morgana understands. She doesn't realize, not at all. But she understands.

Her hands tremble with the pain of lost friends - pain she should have felt when Merlin left her to die, killed her. But she feels it now, as news flies from Camelot; Merlin is dead.

Emrys is dead too. That's what the druids say.

Emrys is dead and Merlin is dead and that means that all resistance against her is dead.

Morgana should feel amazing. She should feel ready to order her army to march on Camelot within the day.

Instead, Morgana falls onto her crumbling throne and sniffs with emotions she had thought she had destroyed. She cries and silently, her heart hollows.

(She had thought she'd known what hollow meant, before. But now, now she can truly say what it means.)

Kilgarrah feels, too.

He is an old dragon. He has seen many ages come and go and come again, only to leave him alone, the last of his race on the side of light.

(Aithusa weeps too. There is a deep loss that she feels. Her dragonlord had left her to be crippled and tortured, but she had found Morgana. And her dragonlord was still her dragonlord. Aithusa cried out with a loss so profound, the screech reached the heavens.)

But this... the last dragonlord has gone, and his life cut too short. Merlin had been a source of many worries for Kilgarrah, but his presence as the protector Albion had sated many of his worries as well. For Albion would have many protectors, but none would shine so bright as the warlock who would bring it into creation.

And now... now there could be no more Albion. Without Emrys, without Merlin, the land of Albion is well and truly lost.

(Kilgarrah tells himself that he cries for the loss of a land, but his heart weeps for the loss of his kin and he roars.)

The light for Albion has been snuffed.

Albion is dead for Emrys is dead.

Emrys is dead and Merlin is dead.

Merlin is dead, and maguc mourns.

* * *


	2. Avalon

Merlin opens his eyes to a hazy, unseeming sight. White and dark and confused. The only things, the only people he can make out are two figures walking towards him, clothes the ones they had worn when they died.

"Lancelot," He breathes. "Freya."

The two smile, albiet sadly.

"It wasn't your time to die, Merlin," Lancelot says, and Merlin can feel the pain in his words (His magic has never felt so alive as it dpes here).

Freya pushes towards him, Lancelot dragged behind her, and engulfs him in a hug that Merlin does not know he has been waiting for. "There are no strawberries here, Merlin, but I am so happy to see you."

And for the first time in nearly a decade, Merlin lets the weight on his shoulders go.


End file.
